


bittersweet

by Belmont



Category: sweet pool
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Kristi being a goddess, M/M, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:09:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14674653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belmont/pseuds/Belmont
Summary: Makoto had all but forgotten Zenya existed after Youji moved away.





	bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> it's 2018 and i'm writing a sweetpool fanfic, isn't that absolutely insane?
> 
> anyway, this is basically going to be porny gorey makozen HUGELY self indulgent because im a slut for this rarepair; makoto is still residually affected by youjis pheromone bullshit and zenya starts responding as a mesu to accommodate him (instead of responding as an osu to compete, since there's no tetsuNOPE around) 
> 
> this first part is long and run-on because im tipsy, forgive me

High school was out for the final summer, and Makoto was surprised he’d made it as long as he had up until his fourth year.   
  
Not particularly smart, but popular enough because of his cheery athleticism. He had friends, and he had a (long distance, now) best friend. That was plenty for him to say the years in school were worth it.  
  
College prospects? Couldn’t say he had any- but he’d take the entry exam anyway. Mom would be happy that he tried.  
  
Behind his eyes, he saw his friends from the track team grinning on the bleachers alongside pretty underclassmen girls and their friends. A smile dimpled his cheeks, and he sat up from the floor where he was stocking a small freezer to stretch his arms into the out-blowing fan. Senior year was going to be _damn_ good. Could summer be over already?  
  
A few more hours and his shift at the convenience store would be up. A shame that he didn’t have plans tonight.  
  
-  
  
Bright eyes were glued to the clock, watching the last few minutes tick away until he could close up. The owner was having his celebratory cigarette in the back, so Makoto had taken the time to scroll through his phone and fire off a few lazy text messages at the one person he was always happy to pester. Youji graced him with a single word answer, then an emoji and a half-hearted joke. The older boy was staying with his sister after he was allowed to graduate early, and Makoto hadn’t gotten a chance to see him after the school year had begun.    
  
Texting wasn’t a decent substitute for actual face-to-face conversation, but he understood Youji was a special case. Being so sick took a massive toll on him, and the runner had a sinking feeling his illness was becoming so severe the move in with his sister’s family was more of a precautionary measure than an effort to save up funds to move to college. On top of that, he was aware of some fight between another student and Youji just before the sickly teenager requested an expeidiated graduation.  
  
The outcome of said fight was never made known to him, and he knew better than to pry about it.  
  
Tetsuo’s blocky, drawn face flashed in his memory. Makoto’s fingers curled around his phone as if to protect it from the mere thought of the guy- if Youji didn’t like him, then Makoto didn’t like him either.  
  
The bell on the shop door chimed once, a customer shuffling in to get one last item before they headed home. The redhead leaned on the countertop, unable to sneak a peek at the person before he lazily slipped around the register and prepared to close up the freezers for the night. Whoever it was, they better pick something fast--  
  
A can scrapped along the linoleum, and Makoto paused mid-step to glance over his shoulder at the thick blonde hair sloppily tied and tossed over a slouched back. A single, wet grey-brown eye suddenly peered at him with a distant expression. The runner felt a ripple of bile push upwards from his stomach into his throat- he’d forgotten all about this absolute freak.  
  
”Hellooooo?” A fingernail tapped the countertop. “- you gonna charge me for this or stare at me all night? I could steal it! You want me to steal itttt?” Zenya’s voice was croaky and syrupy all at once. He sounded high, or stupid, or both- Makoto couldn’t help but desperately want to ignore him forcing him to leave.  
  
Despite himself, he retraced steps back to the register, avoiding any proximity between them, and scanned the can sheepishly. Orange juice? Why the hell did he need orange juice?  
  
”Hey, uh… You knew Youji Sakiyama, right?” He was offering a credit card to him, and Makoto took it between pinched fingers without looking at the blonde. “You were his friend? I think you were his friend. You guys talk still? You seen him around?”  
  
”Nope. Here,” The card was handed back, and he accidentally glanced at the other’s flushed face in the brief exchange-- only to gag audibly.  
  
The eyepatch looked as if it was so saturated with _something_ beneath it, that it’d become damp, leaking some reddish-yellow fluid down one narrow cheek. Zenya must’ve known his face was practically oozing, but just didn’t seem to care.  
  
”Oh yeah? Huh… Thank youuu.” The card was deposited into a garish lizard-themed wallet. He drew the can up toward his mouth, prying the tab open with yellow teeth as his back turned toward Makoto. “Bye-bye.”  
  
”You need to go to a hospital,” The words tumbled out of his mouth while Zenya continued his exit. “You got an infection or something man, you need a doctor.”  
  
A melodic, raspy laugh echoed past the shelves as the door chime sounded again.  
  
-  
  
Disgustingly oppressive heat, like his flesh had been enclosed in some kind of throbbing cocoon, plagued Makoto throughout the night. As soon as his shift ended, he’d all but ran home in an attempt to escape the gross image of that creep’s face burned into his mind. He watched a few episodes of anime, tried to hit up an underclassman’s twitter, took himself for a late-night walk around the block. Nothing was making him feel any less… uncomfortable. As the fever continued to worsen, he texted Youji out of reflex for some assurance or advice.  
  
He figured it was just his bed, or the room. The fan was on the highest setting, but maybe it was too old and burning out? The redhead stripped down to nothing, sitting naked on the floor of his room with his head in his hands as the fever seemed to rage on inside him.  
  
”There’s no way I’m sick.” Mumbling to himself, he pulled the fan closer. “No way, I feel fine… I feel fine, I’m just so hot.” Somewhere in the room, his phone buzzed with a text message. Running fingers through damp hair, he fished the device into his palm from off the bed and punched in his passcode.  
  
’don’t worry so much it’ll pass’  
’stay away from people like him though’  
’hes just not a good person’  
  
Youji’s messages illuminated his sweaty face, and he read them silently over again in that soft, assuring voice he so desperately missed hearing. Things had been …different since he left the city. Makoto didn’t feel as close to him as he once had, but he still felt as if they shared a special bond that simply couldn’t be broken from distance nor time.  
  
”I miss you.” He locked his phone screen without a reply, leaning back against the edge of the bed with closed eyes. For some vague, strange reason, he was now feeling almost _hungry_.  
  
“I really do.”  
  
-  
  
The next day was wholly uneventful.  
  
Fever abated when morning came, he’d felt entirely refreshed and ready to work. The shop saw almost no customers though, due to a rainstorm, and it was as if the clock decided it would move at a snails pace just to savor the lack of business. Makoto was beside himself with boredom, thankful his shift was almost up so he could get his butt into bed and sleep this laziness off.  
  
He was playing a phone game drowsily when the door chimed. Not bothering to look up at who entered, he was startled when he felt something cold press against the bare skin of his arm.  
  
”Wakey wakey.” The acrid stench of booze permeated the air. Beneath that was a strange wafting sweetness, almost like smell of melting chocolate. “I’ve arriveddddd for my juicy juice-fixey-fix.” Zenya, of course.  
  
Their eyes met, and Makoto noted the thick bandage that’d replaced the eyepatch he’d worn yesterday. So it was likely an infection or something- that made sense. “Are you drunk?” He scanned the orange juice can and passed it over. “You should really go home.”  
  
”I need to go here and there and everywhere with you, huh? I’m not drunk…” That foggy grey eye was fixated on his name-tag. “Ma-ko-to. Makoto-chan.” He leaned over the counter to offer his credit card. “Bossy.”  
  
That smell, odd in its inviting sweetness, overwhelmed the stink of alcohol for a brief moment. Without realizing, he’d wrapped his fingers around the blonde’s wrist and pulled it closer to his face.  
  
”What the fuck?” Zenya was smiling though, pushing the card between his fingers so Makoto could press his nose into an open palm. “Are _you_ drunk?” And it almost felt like he was. That was the strangest smell, familiar, but not something he could clearly remember. If it wasn’t punctuated by the stink of acid, it might be more readable-- more _appetizing_.  
  
”Uh—“ He quickly shoved the hand away; the card clattered onto the countertop from the force. “It’s 250 yen. You want a container of twelve? It’d save you in the longrun.” Hardly listening to what he was saying himself, the blonde eyed him curiously.  
  
”I like the walk over, though.” Lips pursed. “I ‘unno if I wanna buy it, since I’d have to wait to take a walk here againnnnn.” A grunt was the only feasible reply the athlete could muster.  
  
”Your loss.”      
  
-  
  
That night and many after, he found he was unable to achieve restful sleep. Nothing he ate felt satisfying, and nothing he drank seemed to quench a bizarre thirst for something unknown to him. Sweet, but bitter. That was what Makoto found he began to crave. Just as before, fever overcame his body. He shed his clothing to lie on the bed and marinate in rapidly shifting thoughts. Each night he puzzled over the same.  
  
Youji stopped answering his texts. They stopped being sent.  
Zenya seemed to suddenly take an interest in him, but Makoto didn’t care to consider why. He stopped by the shop once every other day to pick up juice or some garbage snack food- he seemed to be unable to recover from whatever wound was beneath that bandage.  
  
Makoto considered the smell again; heated chocolate with an underlying twinge of alcoholic tartness. Sweet, but still _bitter_.  
  
The fever sent a shiver through him then, and his body twisted toward the warmth of the comforter. He considered the softness of the man’s skin against his fingers, the narrow wrist with clear blue veins- how the blood coursing through might taste on his tongue.  
  
His penis grew hard from the thought of biting down into that flesh, and feeling the writhe of that strange, foreign body against his own while he drank. Sweet, bitter. The idea of Youji instead of Zenya, the mere thought that it could’ve been him who was constantly looking for him and wanting him. Youji, always smelling so sweet to the point of being practically _edible_.  
  
”Fuck.” Tears ran down his cheeks while a hand wrapped around himself shamefully. “Not this again.”  
  
-  
  
”Mako-chan, are you busyyyyyy?” Blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun. The bandage on his eye looked fresh, and Zenya was dressed in a top low enough to make him look as if he had cleavage when he pressed his arms together. Green eyes peered at the little crease of skin, noting the shape of small nipples swollen from the cold shop air beneath the cheap fabric.  
  
“Hey! Eyes up here, pervert.” The laughter in his voice made the redhead frown.  
  
”I’m not busy, what do you want?” A lengthy pause while Zenya twiddled a piece of stray hair around his finger. In the bag over his shoulder, his Iguana’s head slowly emerged between the tracks of an opened zipper.  
  
”My dad’s finally out on business or something, so I’m home alone and shit this weekend. Sooooooooo boring!” That was a lie, but there was truth in the absence of the Okinaga patriarch for the time being. Kitani trusted Zenya to remain alone for the night, but the blonde hardly trusted himself. “You should come over, I got booze and hentaiiiiiii.” A snort from Makoto, who shook his head.  
  
”That’s disgusting.” But his stomach growled audibly, and the one-eyed teenager immediately picked up on it. “You’re hungry, huh? Yeah, you must be starrrrrvinggggg.” The melodic purr sent a shot of heat straight to his groin, and he crossed his ankles behind the counter warily.  
  
”Will it stop?” The question was quiet, and Makoto felt lightheaded from the words alone. “If I come over and do it, will it stop?”  
  
”Will what stop? Do _what_?” Zenya’s eye seemed to brighten, and his Iguana shifted a leg out of the bag, only to draw it back in from realization of the lack of purchase. “C’mon, use your words like a big boy!” The cross around his neck glinted in the low light of the shop, temporarily distracting Makoto from the wild feeling of shame and self-hatred he felt at the sudden urge to consume the man before him alive.  
  
Just like with Youji, those thoughts he’d long buried re-emerged with a new sense of urgency. Bittersweet, and dirtied by god knows how much abuse Zenya’s body endured- this was dangerous.  
  
”Just wait for me, I’ll go with you there in a few minut-” Zenya grinned, giving his Iguana a thumbs up while talking over the last bit the redhead could fumble out.  
  
”Yeah! Hear that Kristi? We got companyyyyyy!”  
  
-  
  
For such a big house, it was vacuous and empty. The furniture was cold and uninviting, and the rooms held nothing personal. There were no pictures of family, or mementos from vacations- no marks on the floor or the walls indicating people lived in this home.  
  
It was scary, if he was honest, and had he been in his right mind he would’ve ran.  
  
Zenya immediately brought him into the kitchen, urging him to sit down while he got him a glass of beer? Whiskey? Rum? Something deeply amber to loosen his nerves. The sweat from his palms left marks on the glass, so he avoided touching it with more than the tips of his fingers.  
  
”I didn’t think it’d work outtttt! Not like this.” He was saying, between drinking down the flavored beer in unflattering gulps. “You took right to it, y’know? You knew it was moving, and I think you know what to do.”  
  
”What are you talking about?” Makoto took a hesitant sip, cringing at the sourness.  
  
”The changes.” The bandage was gestured at. “There’s something changing, and you knew it was moving. I thought Youji left his mark on youuuuu and I was right! How about that?” He leaned forward for a moment, reaching a hand to brush his fingers along the spines of the Iguana sliding about on the floor. Makoto narrowly avoided staring down his shirt, instead glaring at the cup before him.  
  
”You didn’t know Youji.” Was the counter, and the Iguana’s tail brushed over his bare toes. A leg drew up onto the chair. “I’m only here ‘cuz I have nothing better to do… neither do you, I guess.”  
  
Shoulders rolled forward with a motion to stand. “C’mon, check out my room… it’s the only nice room in the whole placeeeee.” He was padding down the hall, with Makoto slow to follow until they reached a door in the hallway.  
  
-  
  
His room was wildly decorated, with knick-knack mementos from all sorts of bands and posters of actors, actresses, models, cars, motorcycles, animals- like someone had a fever dream and decided to buy some representative of every favorite thing they had; that was essentially the room Makoto was standing in.     
  
Zenya toppled onto the unmade bed, and the redhead noticed the flecks of dried blood on the pale blue pillowcase immediately. “My room is the only one with stuff in it besides the basement.” The blonde remarked. “Kitani lets me get stuff I like, that’s the only reason whyyyy.”  
  
”He’s the guy who drives you to school, right?” Zenya was MIA the entirety of the past semester.  “Your… butler or whatever?”  
  
”Bodyguard, yup.” Long, thin legs spread to allow a glazed eye to peer through. “He’s not coming back tonight, so we have the whoooooooole night for ourselves.” Despite himself, he approached the bedside and pushed at the blonde’s knee until his legs closed.  
  
”I want to see what’s under the bandage first.” Mouth dry, the redhead held up his hand. “Let me see what your eye looks like.”  
  
”It’s ugly.” Came the reply, but he was already pulling the bandaging off piece by piece. “It’s so, so, so ugly.” The stained bandages finally gave way; the fresh blood brought that delicate scent right back into the stale bedroom air.  
  
His face was practically rotting on the right side. Where an eye should’ve been was a murky grey hole, with what looked like a partially liquefied clump of flesh in a socket full of fleshy strands of raw tissue. The area around the eye was sunken and discolored, like a massive open wound decorated with a bruise.  
  
”It hurts,” Makoto’s mouth was watering, ignoring the happy mumbling of Zenya as he pushed himself into the outlandish blonde’s half-open arms. “-it hurts really bad, Mako-chan. You’ll make it hurt less, right?”  
  
-  
  
He’d been a virgin, almost.  
  
There was a persistent second-year on the track team with bright, curling platinum blonde hair and thick, rounded thighs that caught him off guard during a co-ed meet once. She was known to be easy, but she seemed genuinely interested in having sex with him. He didn’t have the balls to say no to her.  
  
She pinned him to a bench in the girl’s lockers, sucking his dick until he felt like he was going to lose it. After that, she lamented the lack of a condom and made him give her oral to compensate.  
  
It wasn’t too bad, and she was still pretty cute up until she started dating one of the freshmen and forgot who Makoto was entirely. After that, he set his sights on a more permanent relationship with someone who genuinely worked with him… someone who countered his flaws, and complimented his strengths.  
  
Youji wasn’t that person, but god did it feel like he was sometimes.  
  
-  
  
For all his shortcomings, Zenya was oddly good at having sex.  
  
His body was long and thin, but with a decent amount of softness around his hips and thighs to make thrusting comfortable. There was hardly any definition to his torso, instead replaced by a distinct row of tight ribs and a pronounced clavicle. His lower body was equally uninteresting; the slight curve of a belly, bony legs marred with little bruises from negligence, and an average penis with undyed pubic hair- he was apparently a natural brunette.  
  
Nothing about him was physically remarkable, but that wound marring the side of his face.  
  
While Makoto loomed over him, he’d pressed a hand against that raw flesh and traced downward. The right side of Zenya’s neck was starting to show the same deepset bruising, hidden beneath that hair, and it was spidering down lower along his right shoulder blade. He’d be rotting more severely if it spread further, maybe even die from shock.  
  
”Hey,” The gurgle of discontent was drawn from the blonde, who rolled his hips fruitlessly into Makoto’s stomach. “-don’t leave me like this, dude… It’s not fairrrr…” The left side of his neck was still bloody from the attention the redhead had given it earlier, so he bit down hard into the spot and punctuated the draw back with a rough thrust.  
  
It didn’t seem like Zenya was new to this from the way he reacted. He was practically wet; a translucent reddish fluid leaking from his body while he bowed his back off the bed to ease the other’s penis into him entirely. Makoto stayed rooted deeply inside the tight hole, giving only the slightest friction between bites into the pale neck and chest. The flesh was close to being torn off, but he had just enough self restraint not to go that far with the other yet.  
  
”You’re gonna kill meeee…” Came a drawn out whimper. “Don’t kill meeee, not yet, okay?” In response, Makoto growled at him- flashing white teeth stained with dark, chalky red blood mysteriously quieted the one-eyed blonde. His body grew limp, a strange look passing through his expression.  
  
Makoto hardly noticed the sudden eerie compliance; instead, he kept at it until he was satiated.  
  
-  
  
The sweet smell had vanished by the time he awoke.  
  
He was alone in the blonde’s bedroom; naked body sprawled out on the sheets. The only sound in the room was the quiet whir of a fan in the window. When Makoto sat up, he winced at the pang of intense pain radiating from behind his eyes. It was the same feeling of falling out of a sugar high, or a freshly brewed hangover.    
  
Weirdly enough, nothing felt like a mistake. He was _satisfied_.  
  
Crumped bedsheets beneath him were wet with a mix of drying semen, blood, and saliva. A shiver ran through him at the sight of a particularly large clump of flesh that didn’t look as if it’d been torn from Zenya’s skin, but rather… internally. The redhead shifted quickly out of the bed and toward the door. He needed to wash his face-- no, he needed to wash his entire fucking body clean. Whatever they did last night worked for him, so there was no reason to stick around.  
  
The bathroom door was closed, and he lingered outside listening to the sound of violent vomiting from within. Zenya’s gasping and whimpering between retches had him creaking the door open just enough to glimpse inside.  
  
It was just enough to assess the problem.  
  
Tile wet with a mix of blood, flesh, and a murky pale-white fluid surrounded the body clinging to the toilet. Zenya looked more like a corpse than a human being; the veins in his arms stood prominent, hair matted with red clumps barely masking the bite-sized holes missing out of his neck and chest, lower body painted in blood, viscera, and what might have been human excrement.  
  
Head lifting from the toilet bowl, one glazed grey-brown eye shown between strands of wet hair. The athlete opened his mouth, unsure what to offer at this nightmarish scene, but found himself so soothed by the oddly sweet scent of rotting flesh radiating from the body that he simply grunted. “Hm.” Bittersweet.  
  
The watery eye narrowed, punctuated by a dry heave. ”You…” Red saliva oozed from between the blonde’s clenched teeth. “Uhhhh _rghk_ … uhhhh…. You made it… you made it hurt … ** _so much worse_**.”   
  
-  
  
Bandaging the wounds after washing both of them up was cathartic, in an odd way. The blonde hardly spoke; eye remained dull, limp body pushed up against the corner of the sofa in the main room of the house. Kristi regarded her owner coolly once he’d been deposited there, crawling into his lap and affectionately biting the ends of his still-damp hair. She seemed to trigger something in him reflexively, and he stroked a hand down her back slowly. Silently.  
  
Makoto stayed only a short while longer, making sure there was as little evidence of their coupling as possible, before heading out without saying a word to the other teen. He’d gone directly from his own home to work, then directly back after his shift. Shower, shave, crawl into bed.  
  
A text suddenly illuminated his cellphone screen, and he hesitantly entered his passcode only to squint at the writing beneath Youji’s mobile number.  
  
’you dont listen to me’  
’i have a feeling you went to see him’

‘you make trouble for yourself’  
  
There was another text, from a number not saved to his phone.  
  
It was a picture message, complete with a bunch of out-of-place emoji stickers plastered on the borders. The picture itself seemed to be of a wet lump of meat wrapped in a pale blue blanket—the same blanket that came off Zenya’s bed. Kristi’s spindled toes in the corner of the image indicated she seemed to be the one who found the mess- that fucking lizard.  
  
’look @ our ~~beautiful~~~ bby!!!!! : )))) were gonna make a billion more rigt!!! Ttly worth the bellyache <3’  
’when can u com ovr to do it agin???’  
’i feel so mush bettr now!!!!! I promis <3’  
  
  



End file.
